Same-day visa for Indian businesses, no cap on students: David Cameron

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David Cameron arrives in Mumbai on a three-day India visit

MUMBAI: Britain will offer same-day visas to businessmen and relax rules to permit greater technology transfer as Prime Minister David Cameron seeks to win new overseas businesses and overcome a slump that has pushed the world's sixth-biggest economy to the edge of a rare tripledip recession. In his second visit to India after taking office, Cameron also promised to make visas easier for students and offered to partner India to study the prospects of a massive infrastructure project that will build new cities and industrial areas from Mumbai to Bangalore. "I want Britain and India to have a special relationship... this is a relationship about the future, not the past," Cameron told employees of Hindustan Unilever, his first stop on Monday morning. "India's rise is going to be one of the great phenomena of the century and it is incredibly impressive to see the vibrancy of your democracy, the great strength of your diversity and the enormous power of your economy that is going to be one of the top three economies by 2030," he told businessmen at a luncheon meet later in the day. Cameron is leading the largest-ever business delegation by a British leader to any country and his hectic schedule and his pitch for a better partnership underscored the importance of increased investments in India acting as a spur to British economic growth. Britain is in danger of slipping into a rare triple-dip recession after its economy declined 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2012. Trade between Britain and India is still negligible given the size of the economies.

UK to Focus on Project Partnerships

India has emerged in recent years as the second biggest investor in the UK. The UK is also the biggest European investor in India but Cameron wants to change all that to focus on project partnerships. "We have to recognise that it's no longer an issue just to sell more goods and services into our country; it's about jointly investing in new projects. I'm in no doubt that India is going to be one of the greatest success stories of this century -- a rising power in the world. And I want Britain to be one of your partners as you grow and succeed," he added. He offered Britain's help in building an industrial corridor between Mumbai and Bangalore connecting India's financial hub and manufacturing hub with its technological hub. He offered British expertise in building cities and industrial centres along this corridor. Britain, he said, will offer same-day visas to businessmen to encourage more business visits . The British government will also try and cut down the hassles involved in student visas to attract students and cut in to the large number of students going to American universities. "There is no limit on the number of Indian students who could come to British universities, so long as they had an English language qualification and a place to study," Cameron said.

Many foreign students in the UK find it difficult to get work after completing their education and the current economic gloom is just one of the reasons, says Rajesh Agrawal, founder and CEO of Rational-FX, a forex solutions company founded by Indore-born Agrawal who migrated to the UK around the turn of the current century. "The PM's statement is welcome but it needs to be reflected in the regulations for students who come here to study," London-based Agrawal, whose company employs many Indian students, told ET over the phone. Britain and India shared a common past, culture and history but we want to focus on the future , Cameron said. "You are the world's largest democracy, we are one of the oldest democracies ," said Cameron.

He also found time to focus on the contentious issue of tax saying that some forms of tax avoidance have become so aggressive that there should be moral questions about whether countries should allow that kind of behaviour . He was responding to questions about the low tax paid by companies such as Starbucks in the UK and whether multinationals should pay more tax. Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata trusts and former chairman of Tata Sons who spoke at the afternoon meet with businessmen , praised the level of openness and transparency for businessmen in the UK and called for a new level of partnership between the two countries to address opportunities in other countries. He told businessmen that the level of technological skills available in the UK is very often understated.